The world had ended. There was no point going on, for the worst had happened. Truly, there was no more beleaguered existence than mine, I knew. The shards of a fallen ally fell from my fingers once more as I lamented the loss. It had been two days since their thread was cut short and I was still in mourning.

“I’m sorry about your fancy stick, Grant.” Naea had humoured me for a while, but even I no longer truly felt devastated.

“How dare you?” I replied, playing up the despair. “Yoh’ee was with me longer than you. He was a good boy.” I pushed out my lower lip and patted the pile of wood, shaking my head. The staff had been with me since my first fight in this new world. In no uncertain terms, I would be dead a dozen times over without it. Its ability punched far above its weight class, allowing me to defeat enemies I stood no chance against otherwise.

I sighed and returned the mess to its box in Home Base. I didn’t like keeping it in my inventory as it was now called Yo Staff (Broken). The constant reminder was painful. I was hoping that I could maybe repair it or make use of the materials in some other way later. The System hadn’t given me any hint of crafting abilities, but maybe I was just missing something.

“Did you just call the staff ‘Yoh’ee’? I’m not making that up, am I?” Naea was floating in the air, not moving her wings. Despite there being nothing holding her, nor any danger of her falling, she looked… precarious. She had discovered that her Dao and mana could let her fly without using her wings. You would think as she could fly normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it apparently was.

I didn’t get what the fuss was about. I also couldn’t do it, so I was being a bit petulant. She said it was something to do with enforcing the intent of the Dao onto the world but the explanation didn’t help much. There was a lot of power to consolidate and understand, so I didn’t focus too hard on what I could not do.

Defeating Shub-Nagorath had come at the expensive cost of the Yo Staff. However, there were gains aplenty to shore up the loss. I pulled up my character page and felt my spirit lift a little.

Name - Grant Kaeron Race - Stormborn (Grade 1) Level - 39

Title - Dragon Slayer

Fortitude - 55 Speed - 55 Mental - 148 Will - 65

Free attribute points: 100

Between the defeat of the boss monster and the subsequent clear up of its foul offspring, I gained five whole levels. Each level required around fifty percent more than the last, so the gains were going to get slower. Getting one hundred attribute points at once was novel and probably wouldn’t happen again for a while.

Inventory

Gold Coins (Xaverion Minted) - 5442

Gold Coins (Standard Mint) - 13,216

Sorehammer

Storm Arrows

Assorted Earth foods

Aspect of the Tempest

Aspect of Gluttony

Guidance Stone Of Desecration

Nearly six thousand gold coins of somewhat indeterminable worth, an Aspect and a Guidance Stone. Their descriptions were the same as previous ones, the Aspect could bind to an attribute and the Guidance Stone could bind to an Aspect. When I thought of them as nothing more than magical gems, simply slotting them into the available places made sense.

Now, I knew Aspects were a larger part of my being. They were the entryway to understanding Dao, and binding an Aspect was like choosing your method of transport. Without the right vehicle, you would only go so far.

Aspect - Gluttony (Rare)

I would have to consider long and hard whether Gluttony fit with anything I wanted to be doing with the System. There was an argument to be made that it fit with being draconic, but that was just a thought experiment more than anything. I ignored it for now, mostly.

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Item - Guidance Stone of Desecration

Guidance stones are sometimes called the lesser variant of Aspects. Each Aspect has a set amount of spaces to absorb a Guidance Stone. They can only be used by Aspect wielders.

Use Guidance Stone of Desecration? This will consume one Guidance slot from your available Aspects.

I had used three stones, but two of them fused to become a Guidance Stone of the Storm. My legendary Dragon Aspect, now Dao, could contain two more Guidance Stones. I still planned to use the Aspect of the Tempest but did I want anything to do with gluttony or desecration as concepts? It was all more than a little daunting. While I found myself with enough strength, I didn’t see any reason to muddy the waters just yet.

The battle Shub-Nagorath and her brood had taken it out of me due to their foul nature and the constant sense of danger disallowing me from rest. Now I had a genuine chance for downtime for the first time since evolving to Grade 1, my first port of call was to start applying my free attribute points and developing a whole new fighting style. I still had more than enough learning to do with my current situation without adding new Aspects and abilities to the mix.

Our third day of “rest” was actually exhausting. Naea had, of course, kept up with me in levels. She was currently at a healthy forty five and the additional attributes from each level up were showing massive dividends. Naea used the Stunchucks and Chibizashi to full effect in our “sparring”. She gave me more than a few broken bones and deep cuts which she then had to heal. I wasn’t bitter, nor was she sorry.

I could have added one of the three available weapons to my own repertoire but there were a few reasons not to. I couldn’t remove Staff Mastery from the Weapon Mastery ability, it was ingrained as part of it now. While I was more than happy with how the staff had helped me, adding another weapon was a big decision. Hammers and nunchucks seemed like non-starters, one being too basic and one being too exotic. I expected swords were likely to be fairly common outside the dungeon, but the Chibizashi was perfect for her own style.

All that to say, I was trying to learn some form of unarmed combat which would work against Naea. If I could deal with her, then I wouldn’t have any problems with what the Dungeon had shown so far. The breakthrough came, as usual, when I was pushed the furthest.

Throughout the day, Naea and I clashed violently until I gave up. To start, I had been forced to concede due to damage. A particularly clever feint caught me off guard and the Stunchucks lived up to their name as they collided with my jaw. One moment we were fighting, the next I was waking up spitting out teeth. Naea’s healing had repaired the damage while I was unconscious.

After that, I improved. Naea still gave me some vicious injuries but I considered it part of the training. If I could fight through half my guy getting torn away, I might survive a fight I otherwise wouldn’t. Surviving such an injury was honestly easy. My vital organs were definitely a lot less vital these days. Each time Naea defeated me, I added five of my free points to my attributes.

I had originally envisioned a ten-ten-sixty-twenty split for my attributes, a ratio I had completely ignored for what was necessary in the moment. I didn’t have the attributes to bring myself back to exactly that balance but I was happy by the end. Forty five points into Will, bringing the attribute to 110 before additional effects. The rest into Mental, which finished at 203.

Each bout lasted longer as my mana regeneration increased alongside my Will attribute, while I pushed Naea more and more with the improved quality of mana from rising Mental stat. The final culmination occurred as Naea began mingling her use of Dao into her attacks.

Like all the progress I had made so far was for naught, she seemed to redouble in speed and strength all at once. All over again, my attacks began to miss their mark. In my head I knew Naea had me beat in the Speed attribute by far, but I could feel frustration in my Dao all the same. It shouldn’t matter if she’s faster, I should be hitting all the same.

Impotent energy dissipated at the end of each missed blow. Mana and wisps of Dao which flicked out from my snapped movements and were shed without use. The waste of my energy prickled at my nearly draconic greed. Waste was an expenditure without gain, something which could not stand. Unwilling to continue discharging my valuable energy redundantly, I snarled.

I twisted my wrist and forced the energy to gather. My hand was the stick and the expelled mana and Dao were cotton candy. Naea’s eyes widened and she flashed backwards at maximum speed. She could sense the august power I grasped but hadn’t grasped its nature. Distance was as irrelevant as my fist became heavy with intent.

The intent to retaliate.

I brought my hand down in a chop and Naea cursed. She was easily sixty feet away from me, but the blow landed all the same. It was just a tap, all the force gone as I lazily dropped my hand. She was slapped into the ground and I had to stop her from charging right at me in anger. Holding up my hands, I shouted for calm. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, you smashed me to hell, stop. I barely touched you.”

Naea did stop, throwing me a glare. “Figured it out then?” She asked, rubbing her shoulder dramatically. Wimp, I thought to myself while nodding to the fairy. Even if I didn’t have a System message blinking for my attention, I would have been certain a threshold was passed. I did everything I could to capture the feeling I had when throwing the attack. Once the well of inspiration was dry, I turned to the System message.

Skill Unlocked - Retribution (Dragon)

Few creatures are as fearsome in their revenge than a dragon. Anyone brave or foolish enough to stand against them faces destruction.

The skill’s knowledge worked its way into my mind quickly and easily. The principle and execution was very similar to Infused Strike, so much so I was honestly surprised the skill wasn’t an evolution. The difference was in the expense required to perform the attack mostly, with Retribution able to hit from range but devouring my mana at a prodigious rate. Infused Strikes were far more efficient, so long as I could hit.

We called it a day on our training soon after. Neither of us were interested in getting hit any more than we already had, so I suggested tea in the garden. Naea took it upon herself to make the batch, a first, and I relaxed against the tree stump chair outside Home Base. We enjoyed a night of calm, relaxed conversation and food before both going to bed ready to face the coming day.

As long as nothing unexpected happened, the Dungeon could be cleared by the same time tomorrow.